Australia picked up their first win of the women's Hockey Champions Trophy 2016 as they strolled to a comfortable 3-1 victory against Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand.

The Oceania champions got off to a flying start as Emily Smith capitalised on a failed interception to put the Hockeyroos 1-0 ahead.

New Zealand hit back immediately from a penalty corner as Anita McLaren (formerly Punt) lifted the ball into the top of Australian goalkeeper Rachel Lynch's goal.

Free scoring Hockeyroo Jodie Kenny then put Australia ahead again in the 18th minute before the girls in gold edged further in front after a brilliant pass from Georgie Parker helped Grace Stewart beat Black Sticks goalkeeper Kayla Whitelock to make it 3-1.

After the game, Australia captain Madonna Blyth said: "We speak about scoring early in these matches especially when there's a lot of fire and both teams are going hard at the ball. You want to get that upper advantage pretty early on and we got that. They got back into it as you'd expect but then our dominance showed and we got a couple of goals ahead which we were happy about."

Meanwhile, New Zealand's Charlotte Harrison said: "We didn't get the basics right today, we didn't push up as a team, and we probably didn't have the discipline in our structure. So we'll be looking back at the footage and really looking at what we can do and improve as a team throughout every single layer."

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